


Cards

by ghostburr



Category: 18th & 19th Century CE RPF, 18th Century CE RPF, American Revolution RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 22:22:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6489649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostburr/pseuds/ghostburr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>got a weird fortune cookie tonight</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cards

 

The year was immaterial, seventeen-eighty-something, when they were both still young and untarnished by political rivalry. Hamilton sat with the quill gently tickling his bottom lip, glancing at the clock in the corner every so often, tapping his foot to a beat inside his head. He reminisced while the quill brushed back and forth across his chin. The year was…seventeen-eighty-three. He made up a year. It didn’t matter.

He was young enough to still believe he could conquer the world and that he could have everything; Hamilton never did anything by halves. He rubbed his tired eyes and judged by the position of the moon that it was nearing two am. The late June night was stifling, and when the summer City weather began reminding him of his tropical childhood he was never able to sleep.

The general looked down at the scrawled letter before him—a secret kept to himself. He smiled bitterly.

“The only way any one is going to read this is if I die,” Hamilton muttered to himself. He shook his head and laughed again. “This dance had better be worth it, Colonel.”

  
In fact, he was rather impressed that he’d found Burr’s breaking point; so many times before he’d seen the icy glaze descend over his features even in the face of horrendous vitriol that Hamilton began to believe his own lies about the man. That he was not fully human, a victim of debauched habits, privately releasing his tempers so that his public personal stayed Cold. The year was seventeen-eighty-three when Hamilton first noticed the cracks in the ice, and, fascinated, spent countless amounts of energy longing to pry them open.

The general yawned and leaned back in his chair. He would write three, maybe four more drafts of this letter. He picked an eyelash from his eye and flicked it carelessly to the floor. He wondered if Burr’s letter would be as good.

Hamilton put his head down on the cold, smooth parchment, and steadied his racing mind with the ticking of the clock. Briefly, he closed his eyes, and wondered if every choice he ever made was leading up to this.

The year was seventeen-eighty-three, and he was singing a duet with the tiny colonel, their slim bodies dwarfed by their larger, stronger, soldier-friends. Someone passed him a drink, and he took it. Felt the colonel’s warm hand snake around his waist and his voice hit a high note. They were friends.

“You know Colonel Burr, you met him—“

“—I have known him for a long time, “ Hamilton interjected to the other soldier. He felt the presence with his hand around his waist nod eagerly.

“Hamilton wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for my family.” It was Burr’s turn to interrupt. Hamilton felt the hand grip tighter; vowed to check for marks in the morning.

“It wasn’t all your family, Burr,” he found himself replying, loosening himself from the grip. Burr’s smile faded. His prize was recanted.

Hamilton heard Burr’s laugh ring out, even in the thick, crowded bar. It was a desperate thing. It was his turn to be the tightly gripping hand, pulling the laughing man into another song. He wondered whether he would owe the colonel something, a repayment, a thank-you, at a later date. He worked himself to the bone for his new country. And for the way Burr laughed, “That’s _right_. The _poems_.” Dancing on a fine line between derision and fascination.

“You never had to work a day in your life, Burr,” Hamilton heard himself say, and suddenly they were sitting at a table in the corner away from the drinks and the soldiers and the alcohol. The colonel held up a finger.

“Do you hear that? It’s jealousy, I think.” Dark eyes glittered in the dim light; teeth stained dark with Merlot bared into a grin. Hamilton looked away and blushed; pretended to study a tapestry.

“We are all dealt a hand, Hamilton,” Burr’s voice called to him again.

“It does not matter what hand you’ve been dealt,” Hamilton countered, “but playing whatever you’ve been dealt well.”

“I’m holding you to that.” Another dark smile, and the cracks in the ice began to show.

Hamilton woke with a start, head aching, still pressed against the parchment. He rubbed the reddened spot on his forehead and squinted at the words on the paper in front of him again. Perhaps it was all a card game: point-counterpoint, dare-counterdare. Perhaps it was a dance. A maze. A play. Any number of metaphors. He took his thumb and brushed a speck off the corner of the paper, and chewed on his lip. Whatever it was, he liked it. Whatever it was, it could not have existed without the counterbalance.

Hamilton woke up and suddenly he and Burr were on the verge of fifty and the world felt so small around them.

The general took one last look at his letter, and wondered if, in this particular round, he was playing his cards right.


End file.
